When was the last time you went to a supermarket?
Did you ever notice the sound the checkout scanner makes?
*Beep.*
Light, soft, like something being swallowed whole.
You never gave it much thought, did you?
Neither did I.
Until that night, when I aimed it at an empty shelf and pulled the trigger.
Lin An first noticed the "rules" on his third day on the job.
The supermarket was called "Xileduo," tucked away at the mouth of an alley in the old town. Business was okay during the day, but after 8 PM, it got pretty quiet. He worked the night shift—10 PM to 6 AM—restocking shelves, organizing merchandise, and occasionally troubleshooting the self-checkout machines when the scanners failed.
The pay was 4,800 yuan a month, no meals included, but there was a night shift bonus.
He took the job for a simple reason—he slept during the day and couldn't sleep at night. Instead of lying in bed scrolling through short videos, he might as well earn some money.
There were only two people on the night shift: him and Old Wang.
Old Wang was in his fifties, had worked at the store for nearly a decade, and could fix anything—from freezers to scanners. Even the store manager sometimes called him "Brother Wang." During Lin An's first two days, Old Wang didn't talk much, just taught him how to use the backend system, how to do inventory checks, and how to read the freezer temperatures.
On the third night, Old Wang handed him a scanner gun.
"Use this one," Old Wang said. "Mine's acting up—keeps skipping codes on beer bottles."
Lin An took it, weighing it in his hand. It was light, plastic, the grip worn shiny, with a thin scratch across the screen.
"After closing time," Old Wang suddenly lowered his voice, "don't scan empty shelves with this."
Lin An paused. "Why?"
Old Wang didn't explain, just turned and walked toward the stockroom to unload boxes.
Lin An stood there, staring at the scanner in his hand. He figured it was some supermarket rule—empty shelves don't have barcodes, so why scan them? Seemed like common sense.
He didn't think much of it.
The first week passed without incident.
Lin An gradually got the hang of the night shift rhythm. From 10 to 11 PM, there were still a few stragglers coming in to buy cigarettes, alcohol, instant noodles. After 11, it was basically quiet. He and Old Wang worked separately—Old Wang handled the fresh produce and freezers, Lin An took care of daily necessities and snacks.
He used the scanner when restocking. Every product had a barcode on the back; *beep*, and the system would display inventory, location, expiration date. Lin An found the sound pleasant—clean, precise, like something being confirmed.
Until that night.
Around 2 AM, Lin An pushed the restocking cart to the beverage aisle. The shelves were running low on bottled water and tea drinks. He pulled cases from the carton, arranged them neatly, crushed the empty boxes, and tossed them in the recycling bin.
Next to the beverage section was the milk and yogurt aisle.
Lin An glanced over and noticed two empty slots on the second-to-last shelf of the milk section. It was a local brand called "Chenguang Ranch," carton milk, not popular because it was two yuan more expensive than Mengniu or Yili.
He squatted down, ready to scan the barcode label on the empty shelf to check inventory.
The scanner aimed at the barcode sticker on the empty shelf.
*Beep.*
Lin An pulled the trigger.
He waited for the screen to display product info and stock levels.
The screen lit up.
It showed one line: "Product discontinued."
That was normal. Some slow-selling items got automatically removed from the system, no longer restocked.
But then, the words on the screen changed.
"Pending pickup."
Lin An stared at those three characters for two seconds. The scanner's screen wasn't big, and its backlight was a cheap blue-white that seemed harsh in the dim supermarket.
Pending pickup.
What did that mean? Scanners weren't parcel lockers.
He thought the system was glitching, pressed the trigger again.
*Beep.*
This time the screen went black.
Lin An tapped the side of the scanner. The screen flickered back on, returning to the home screen showing the time and battery—73%.
He chalked it up to a system error. After all, the scanner was already acting up—Old Wang had said his skipped codes on beer bottles, so Lin An's was probably no better.
He pushed the cart to the next aisle and continued working.
Around 4 AM that night, Old Wang came out of the stockroom, stood beside Lin An for a moment, and suddenly said something.
"Did you just scan an empty shelf?"
Lin An froze.
"How did you know?"
Old Wang didn't look at him, eyes fixed on the row of instant noodles. "When you scan it, the computer in the office beeps."
Lin An didn't believe it. "It beeps?"
"Yeah," Old Wang said. "I've been here ten years. Scanned once. It beeped."
Lin An waited for him to elaborate.
Old Wang didn't.
He pulled a pack of Hongtashan from his pocket, stuck one behind his ear, then pushed the cart away.
The next night, when Lin An clocked in, he noticed something.
On the second-to-last shelf of the milk section, in one of those two empty slots, there was now a product.
A carton of milk.
Chenguang Ranch, pure milk, carton.
Lin An stared. Last night, when he scanned the empty shelf, it was one of these two slots. He remembered clearly—both were empty, and he'd squatted down to scan the barcode on the left one.
Now, right there on the left slot, sat a carton of milk, perfectly aligned.
He picked it up and examined it.
The production date field was blank. On the side of the carton where the date and expiration should have been printed, there was nothing.
Lin An flipped it over.
There was writing on the back.
Handwritten, in blue ballpoint pen, the characters crooked like a child's writing.
"Thank you for claiming me."
Lin An stood there holding the milk carton for a good ten seconds.
He thought of various explanations. Maybe someone from the day shift restocked it. Maybe Old Wang put it there to scare him. Or maybe the system had a glitch, inventory data messed up, generated some kind of order.
But the blank production date? The handwriting?
He put the milk carton back on the shelf. Didn't throw it away, didn't drink it.
Went to find Old Wang in the stockroom.
Old Wang was cutting a side of pork, blood flowing down the grooves of the cutting board into the drain. He listened to Lin An, stopped cutting, wiped the knife on his apron.
"What did I tell you yesterday?"
"You said not to scan empty shelves."
"And did you scan it?"
Lin An hesitated. "Yes."
Old Wang looked at him, said nothing, then went back to cutting meat.
"It's just a carton of milk," Lin An said. "Maybe someone put it there."
"Then throw it away," Old Wang said.
"Throw it away?"
"Put it in the trash outside, not in the store."
Lin An found the reaction strange. Old Wang wasn't the type to overreact—he could fix broken freezers, seen it all. A carton of milk without a production date, was that enough to make him so serious?
But Lin An did as he was told.
After his shift, he took the milk carton out of the supermarket and tossed it into the green trash bin at the alley entrance.
He thought that was the end of it.
Third night. First thing Lin An did when he arrived was check the milk section.
On that left slot, there was another carton of milk.
Chenguang Ranch, pure milk.
He picked it up.
Production date blank.
Flipped to the back, that blue handwriting was still there: "Thank you for claiming me."
But there was a new line next to it.
"Don't throw me away."
A cold sweat broke out on Lin An's back.
He put the milk back, hurried to the office, and pulled up last night's surveillance footage. The office computer was connected to the store's sixteen cameras. He found the milk section angle, started from 3 AM, played at 4x speed.
From 3 to 5 AM, no one passed the milk section. At 5:03, there was a blind spot—the leftmost part of the shelf was blocked by a pillar.
Lin An slowed it down, frame by frame.
At 5:03:17, the milk carton appeared.
Out of nowhere. Not there in one frame, there in the next—like someone had cut that frame out and pasted a photo in its place.
He watched it three more times, staring at that frozen frame on the screen for a long time.
Then he went to find Old Wang.
Old Wang was organizing the cigarette cabinet by the checkout. When he heard Lin An, he closed the cabinet door, turned the key in the lock.
"Now you believe?"
"What the hell is going on?" Lin An asked.
Old Wang put the key in his pocket. "I don't know. All I know is, if you scan an empty shelf, something appears there. Those things aren't store inventory—you can't find them in the system, can't scan them."
"What did you get when you scanned?"
Old Wang looked at him, didn't answer.
"The first time you scanned an empty shelf," Lin An asked again, "what came out?"
Old Wang walked to the store entrance, pulled the rolling shutter halfway down. Cold wind rushed in, carrying the damp smell of garbage. He stood with his back to Lin An for a moment before speaking.
"A person."
Lin An thought he misheard.
"What did you say?"
"A person," Old Wang turned around. "A woman. Wearing red clothes, standing in front of that shelf. After I scanned, she was gone. The next day, there was a pair of shoes on the shelf. Red ones."
The supermarket lights were bright—harsh white LED tubes that made the wrinkles on Old Wang's face look like knife cuts.
Lin An opened his mouth to speak, but his throat felt blocked.
"What did you do with them?"
"I threw the shoes away," Old Wang said. "They came back the next day. Threw them again. Back again the third day. I burned them. Fourth day, the shoes were still on the shelf, with a note next to them."
"What did it say?"
"It said—'You don't like these, I'll get you a new pair next time.'"
Old Wang lit a cigarette, took a drag, smoke swirling in the light.
"What happened after?" Lin An asked.
"After that, I stopped throwing them away," Old Wang said. "Just left them there. After about a week, they disappeared on their own."
Lin An thought it sounded made up. But Old Wang's tone wasn't storytelling—he kept staring at the floor, didn't even flick the long ash that had fallen.
"Why are you still working here then?" Lin An asked.
Old Wang crushed the cigarette in the ashtray.
"Because I stopped scanning," he said. "As long as you don't actively scan empty shelves, it just stays there, doesn't bother you. The more you mess with it, the more it comes after you."
He paused.
"But you scanned. And you threw it away."
Lin An walked through the supermarket, checking every empty shelf. Two in daily necessities, three in snacks, one in beverages, and the milk section only had that one carton of milk—no other empty slots.
He stood in front of that carton of milk, staring at it for a long time.
That line on the box—"Don't throw me away"—looked fresh in the light, the pen strokes heavier than the first line, some cutting through the paper to reveal the white pulp underneath.
He reached out and took the milk carton off the shelf.
Hesitated for a long time.
Then put it back.
Fourth day. The milk was still there.
Lin An felt a wave of relief when he arrived. He hadn't thrown it away, so it hadn't changed—no new writing, no tricks.
He walked to the milk section, picked up the carton and flipped it over.
Still the same two lines on the back: "Thank you for claiming me." "Don't throw me away."
No additions.
He put the milk down and turned to clock in at the office.
Then he noticed something.
Next to the milk section was the yogurt aisle. On the top shelf, something new had appeared.
Six cups.
Ceramic, white, each filled halfway with clear liquid. They were lined up evenly, spaced apart like someone had arranged them deliberately.
Lin An went over to look.
The cups were ordinary—cheap ceramic ones sold in the supermarket, with a faded flower printed on the side. The clear liquid had no smell, looked like water.
He picked up one cup, held it up to the light.
There was something white settled at the bottom.
He put the cup back, took a few photos with his phone, then went to check the surveillance.
This time, the cameras showed nothing. Between 2 and 6 AM, the milk section camera had a full forty minutes of black screen. Not signal loss—just complete darkness, like someone had covered the lens entirely.
Forty minutes later, the feed resumed. The milk section looked normal, no cups in sight.
But the cups were there.
Lin An stood at the office door, looking at that row of cups in the yogurt aisle, suddenly feeling a chill creeping up his back.
He went to find Old Wang.
Old Wang was off today.
Lin An called him three times—no answer. Sent WeChat—no reply.
He spent the whole night alone in the supermarket.
He didn't dare touch the cups. Remembering what Old Wang said—the more you mess with it, the more it comes after you.
But he couldn't just leave them there. When the day shift came in the morning and saw a row of random ceramic cups on the shelf, they'd definitely ask questions. If the store manager found out, he might think Lin An was crazy.
At 4 AM, Lin An made a decision. He took the six cups off the shelf, emptied the liquid from each one, wiped them clean with a rag, and put them in a plastic bag, tying it tight.
Then he went to the back door of the supermarket and opened it.
Outside was a narrow alley with several trash bins. Lin An stuffed the plastic bag under the innermost bin, weighting it down with other garbage bags.
He went back inside, closed the door, and washed his hands.
While washing, he noticed the tap water was warm. But he hadn't turned on the hot water.
He turned the faucet off and on, off and on.
The water was cold.
What he'd felt was his own body heat.
Lin An kept his hands under the tap for a long time, until both hands were ice cold, then turned it off.
He didn't look at that empty shelf again.
Fifth day.
The cups didn't come back.
The milk carton was still there.
When Lin An arrived, he checked the top shelf of the yogurt aisle first. Empty. The six cups were gone. He went to the back door and checked the trash bin—the plastic bag was still there, cups inside, one with a small crack, probably from being crushed by other garbage.
Lin An sighed in relief.
He walked to the daily necessities section and noticed something wrong.
On the shelf with laundry detergent and fabric softener, there was something that didn't belong.
A pack of wet wipes.
The packaging was transparent, containing several folded white wipes, no brand, no production date, no labels at all.
There was a sticker on the front of the package.
Handwritten.
"Sorry, I thought you liked clean things."
Lin An held the pack of wipes, standing in front of the shelf, and a thought suddenly hit him.
These new things appearing were responding to what he did.
He took the milk, threw it away—the next day it came back with "Don't throw me away."
He dumped the cup liquid and threw the cups away. The next day the cups were gone, but a pack of wipes appeared elsewhere, saying "Sorry, I thought you liked clean things."
It was responding to him.
Not revenge, not threats—conversation.
This felt scarier than any horror movie trope. If it were ghosts, curses, screams, he'd at least know what he was dealing with. But this was different—like something was watching him, mimicking his actions, trying to establish some kind of connection.
It didn't understand what "clean" meant. It thought wet wipes meant clean. It thought he threw away the cups because he found them dirty.
It was trying to understand him in its own way.
Then responding.
Lin An put the wipes back on the shelf.
He wouldn't throw them away.
Sixth day, seventh day, eighth day.
Every day when Lin An arrived, he checked those three places: the milk in the milk section, the wipes in daily necessities, and the shelf where the cups had been.
No new writing on the milk. The wipes stayed the same. The yogurt shelf remained empty.
Everything seemed to stop.
Lin An almost thought he'd found the pattern—leave them alone, and they wouldn't develop. Just like Old Wang said, as long as you don't actively mess with them, they just stay there.
He even started getting used to it. Every shift, he'd glance at the milk carton, check the wipes, confirm they hadn't changed, then go about his work—restocking, organizing, inventory, closing.
Ninth night, Old Wang came back.
He'd taken three days off, said family matters. Lin An didn't ask, but Old Wang mentioned it voluntarily.
"Went to see my mom," Old Wang said. "She's been talking in her sleep lately, calling someone's name at the window in the middle of the night."
"Who?"
Old Wang looked at him. "Your name."
Lin An almost dropped the scanner.
"Don't joke."
"I'm not joking," Old Wang said. "My mom's over eighty. She doesn't know you, doesn't even know which supermarket I work at. But in the middle of the night, she stares out the window and yells 'Lin An, Lin An, don't open the door.'"
The supermarket lights were harsh, the freezers humming. Lin An stood behind the checkout counter, feeling like that hum wasn't from the freezers—it was something vibrating inside the walls.
"Are you sure she said my name?"
"I recorded it," Old Wang pulled out his phone, found an audio file, and played it.
A frail, old voice came out, broken, like she was speaking through a mouthful of water.
"...Lin An... Lin An... don't open the door... it's outside..."
The recording was only ten seconds long. After listening, Lin An realized his hand holding the scanner was shaking.
"Where does your mom live?" he asked.
"Countryside. Over a hundred kilometers from here."
"How does she know my name?"
Old Wang put the phone away. "I don't know. But I've known this since I was little—my mom never says meaningless things."
That night, neither of them talked much. Lin An pushed the restocking cart back and forth, deliberately avoiding looking at the milk section each time he passed. But one thought kept circling in his head.
Was that thing—the one behind the milk carton, the wipes, the cups—starting to spread?
From the shelves, to the surveillance cameras, to Old Wang's mom.
It was getting closer.
Tenth night, 1 AM. Lin An was stacking boxes in the stockroom when he heard a sound from the checkout counter.
*Beep.*
The scanner sound.
He ran out of the stockroom. No one was at the checkout. Both scanners were on the counter—Old Wang's and his.
Both were there.
But on the checkout computer screen, there was a scan record.
Time: 01:03:22
Barcode: None
Product Name: None
Price: None
Quantity: 1
Operator: Lin An
Lin An stared at that record for five seconds, then looked at Old Wang.
Old Wang was in the fresh produce section, back to him, wrapping plastic around a piece of pork.
"Old Wang," Lin An called. "Did you use the scanner just now?"
Old Wang didn't look up. "No."
"Come check this out."
Old Wang walked over, looked at the computer screen, then at the two scanners on the counter.
He picked up his own, pressed the trigger. Screen lit up, normal. Then picked up Lin An's, pressed it.
Nothing.
Pressed again.
Nothing.
"Did it work yesterday?" Old Wang asked.
"Yeah."
Old Wang flipped Lin An's scanner over, opened the battery compartment, took out the battery, put it back in, pressed again.
*Beep.*
Screen lit up.
But it wasn't the normal interface. No time, no battery—just one line.
"Why haven't you come to see me?"
Lin An stared at those words, palms sweating.
"It's talking to you," Old Wang said, voice low.
"I know."
"You kept throwing those things away, then stopped. It waited a few days, now it can't hold back anymore."
Old Wang took the battery out again, waited a moment, put it back. Turned it on. Normal interface. Time, battery—all there.
But Old Wang's expression didn't relax.
"You have to make a decision," he said. "Stay here, or leave?"
Lin An had thought about this. Since the third day. But he never found a good enough reason to quit. Not for the 4,800 yuan, but because he felt like even if he left, this wouldn't end.
Old Wang's mom was over a hundred kilometers away in the countryside, yelling his name in the middle of the night.
This thing wasn't in the supermarket.
It was on him.
"Will leaving help?" Lin An asked.
Old Wang was silent for a while. "I don't know."
"Then why are you still here?"
Old Wang was silent longer. He lit a cigarette, took two drags, then crushed it on the checkout counter, leaving a black burn mark.
"Because that thing I scanned out," Old Wang said. "It's still here."
The supermarket lights flickered for a split second. Less than half a second, but both of them felt it.
Lin An looked up at the ceiling lights. Six tubes, none flickering, all burning steadily.
But the light felt wrong. Too white. White like it wasn't coming from the tubes—it was like something outside was shining through the entire supermarket, bleaching even the cardboard boxes stacked in the corners.
"It's here," Old Wang said.
Before he finished, a sound came from the milk section.
Very soft.
Like someone placing something on a shelf.
Lin An and Old Wang walked toward the milk section together.
The shelf lights were motion-activated—they should turn on when someone approaches. But when they walked over, nothing happened. Lin An waved his hand in front of the sensor—no response.
Old Wang took out his phone, turned on the flashlight.
When the light hit, Lin An saw the second-to-last shelf of the milk section clearly.
The milk carton was still there. But the packaging had changed.
The carton was now a clear glass bottle, filled with milky white liquid. A handwritten label was stuck on the bottle.
"Expiration date: Yesterday."
Lin An stared at those four words, something snapping in his mind.
Yesterday. Expiration date was yesterday. What did that mean? That the milk was already expired? Or that it should have been drunk before yesterday?
He reached for the glass bottle.
Old Wang grabbed his wrist.
"Don't touch it."
"I want to see if there's writing underneath."
"Don't look," Old Wang's voice was tight. "If you look, you'll want to touch it. If you touch it, it'll change again. Can't you see? It's making you take the initiative."
Lin An's hand froze halfway, less than ten centimeters from the bottle. He could feel the cold coming off it—not the dry cold of a freezer, but damp, sticky cold, like it was seeping up from deep underground.
He pulled his hand back.
They stepped back a few paces, into the range of the motion sensor. The light turned on, white light flooding down, illuminating the entire milk section.
But the glass bottle stayed in the dark. The motion sensor above that shelf hadn't turned on, like those tubes didn't recognize that spot at all.
Lin An noticed something.
The plastic barcode sticker on the shelf—originally white—was now dark gray, like something had burned it from the inside.
"It's spreading," Lin An said.
Old Wang didn't speak, but his face told Lin An he'd noticed too.
They went back to the checkout counter. Lin An sat down, looking at that scan record with no barcode, and suddenly thought of a question.
"You said before, you scanned out a woman and a pair of red shoes. How did you handle it after?"
Old Wang leaned against the counter, hands in pockets, staring at the ceiling for a while.
"I didn't touch it, so it didn't touch me. But I knew it was there. Every morning when I opened the store, the shoes would be in different positions on the shelf—sometimes first row, sometimes third. Sometimes toes facing in, sometimes out."
"What happened after?"
"Eventually it disappeared. But not really. I just couldn't see it anymore. Other people could."
"Who saw it?"
"The manager," Old Wang said. "One day he asked me, 'Old Wang, whose red shoes are these on the shelf? Why are they for sale?' I said I didn't know. He picked them up, said 'These don't have a size,' then threw them in the damaged goods bin."
Lin An's heart clenched.
"What happened then?"
"Next day, the shoes were back on the shelf. But the manager didn't remember throwing them away."
"You didn't tell him?"
Old Wang shook his head, a bitter smile. "You think he'd believe me? He'd think I'm crazy. Then he'd start noticing the shoes. Then he'd touch them. And then..." He didn't finish.
Lin An understood.
Old Wang didn't tell him for the same reason Lin An learned with the cups and wipes—the more you mess with it, the more it comes after you. Telling someone else would make them mess with it. And if they did, things would spread.
But things were already spreading.
Since he scanned that empty shelf, since he threw away the milk, since he dumped the cups and threw them away—it had been pushing outward step by step.
It wasn't content to stay on the shelves anymore.
It started sending him messages through the scanner.
It started using other people's mouths to call his name.
It was evolving.
3:47 AM.
Lin An sat alone by the stockroom door, drinking a Red Bull. Old Wang had gone outside to smoke, leaving him alone in the supermarket.
The freezer sound suddenly changed.
Before, it was a steady hum. Now it was intermittent, rhythmic tapping—*tap, tap, tap*—like something was knocking from inside.
Lin An stood up, walked to the freezer.
The glass door was fogged over, couldn't see inside. He wiped the glass with his hand and looked in.
On the shelf at the very back of the freezer, there was something.
A glass bottle.
The same one he'd seen in the milk section.
Lin An stepped back.
The freezer door suddenly popped open.
A blast of cold air rushed out, carrying an indescribable smell. Not rotten food—sweeter, like fermented dairy, strong enough to make him gag.
The glass bottle was right in front of him, within arm's reach.
The label still said "Expiration date: Yesterday."
But there was a new line of small print below the label.
Lin An bent down to read.
"You're already expired."
He stood up, staring at the bottle, suddenly realizing the words weren't talking about the milk.
They were talking about him.
You're already expired. You shouldn't be here, at this time, seeing these things. You've crossed some line—you're no longer within the expiration date.
Lin An pushed the freezer door closed.
The tapping stopped.
He turned around, ready to find Old Wang.
Then he saw a person standing at the checkout counter.
Back to him, wearing a red coat, long hair reaching her waist. She stood in front of the counter, holding the scanner, pressing it at the air again and again.
*Beep. Beep. Beep.*
Each press made the checkout computer screen flash white.
Lin An stood frozen, feet like they were nailed to the floor. He tried to call Old Wang, but his mouth opened and no sound came out.
The woman stopped pressing.
She slowly turned around.
Lin An saw her face.
It wasn't a face. No features, no skin, no outline. Just a mass of red light, spreading up from her coat collar—like a flame burning, but no heat, no sound.
She took a step toward him.
All the lights in the supermarket went out at once.
In the darkness, Lin An heard a voice, very close, like it was whispering in his ear.
"Are you still going to throw things away?"
He stumbled backward, hitting the shelf. A cascade of items crashed to the floor.
The lights came back on.
No one was at the checkout. The scanner lay on the counter, screen lit, showing one line.
"See you tomorrow."
Lin An squatted on the floor, breathing heavily. The fallen items scattered everywhere—mostly snacks and chips, their bags puffed up like inflated balloons.
He picked them up one by one, putting them back on the shelf.
When he picked up the last one, he noticed the production date printed on the snack bag.
"See back of package."
He flipped it over.
There was a handwritten line on the back.
"You have four more chances."
When Old Wang came back from smoking, he found Lin An squatting in front of the shelf, face as white as paper.
"What's wrong?"
Lin An handed him the snack bag.
Old Wang looked at it. His expression didn't change, but his hand shook.
"Four more chances," he repeated softly. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know," Lin An said. "But I don't think it's giving me chances."
"Then who?"
Lin An looked up, meeting Old Wang's eyes.
"You."
Old Wang's lips moved, but no sound came out.
Lin An stood up, put the snack back on the shelf, brushed the dust off his knees. His voice was calmer than he expected.
"The woman you scanned out, she was wearing red. The one I saw too. Your red shoes were connected to her. You threw them away, so she found another way to come after you. You ignored her, so she came for me."
Old Wang opened his mouth, then closed it.
"Ten years ago, when you scanned that shelf," Lin An said. "She's been here the whole time. You just thought you escaped."
Outside the supermarket, the sky was starting to lighten. A sliver of gray-blue light seeped through the gap in the rolling shutter, illuminating the neatly arranged products on the shelves, the fog still clinging to the freezer, and the wrinkle on Old Wang's face that ran from his eye to his cheekbone.
Lin An picked up the scanner from the checkout counter and put it in the drawer.
"I'm done today," he said.
Old Wang nodded.
Lin An walked to the store entrance, pushed the rolling shutter up halfway, and ducked out.
The alley was quiet. An old scavenger woman was rummaging through the trash bins. When she saw Lin An come out, she looked up at him.
"Young man," she said. "There's someone behind you."
Lin An didn't look back.
He walked down the alley, turned at the intersection, crossed the street, and entered an even narrower alley. After walking about two hundred meters, he stopped, took out his phone, and opened the front camera.
Only he was on the screen.
But on his left shoulder, there was a faint red mark.
Like something was leaning there.
He locked the phone, put it in his pocket.
Kept walking.
Far behind him, the supermarket's rolling shutter slammed down with a *clang*.
Then Old Wang's voice carried over half a street, muffled.
"Lin An—your scanner in the drawer just beeped on its own."
Lin An didn't stop.
He didn't know if he'd have a tomorrow.
But that glass bottle made it clear.
Expiration date: Yesterday.
He'd already expired.
See you tomorrow.